Lone Star State Welcomes Wind Farm Development Texas Style

Lementing its role as the nation’s wind power leader, Texas is taking on two new wind farm developments on a scale that would make the state proud.

In July, Shell WindEnergy Inc. and Luminant, a subsidiary of TXU Corp., announced a joint development agreement for a wind project in Texas. The Briscoe County project will have a capacity of 3,000 megawatts (MW). The two companies also announced their intent to work together to develop other renewable and alternative fuel sources in Texas, such as compressed air storage. The latter uses excess power to pump air underground for later use in electricity generation.

Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens also announced this summer his intention to invest in wind power. The oil tycoon is not building a modest wind farm. He has set his sights on nothing less than what would be the world’s largest wind farm.

Pickens is contributing $6 billion of his own money to install turbines in an area that would cover four counties—Roberts, Gray, Hemphill and Wheeler—in the Texas Panhandle. The Mesa Power project would consist of some 2,000 turbines with the collective capacity to produce up to 4,000 MW of electricity. That is more than five times the 735 MW produced by what is now the largest wind farm near Abilene, Texas.